Some Belgian's go to extreme length to honour their cycling hero's... Frans Geldof (Frans lookalike Eddy Merckx) must be the craziest one...an amazing true story

The story of Frans who simply adores his hero Eddy

**The Tour of Flanders and Frans Lookalike Eddy Merckx**

**Some of the retro bikes in Frans’es collection..they are exact copies of the real ones.**

Have a look at this video, it is the story of complete adoration, I have translated as much possible below as it tells the story of a superfan

The story started when Frans was 16 and a big fan of Eddy, he dabbled a bit in races as an U/16 and junior but his work prevented him to carry on, but as many kept following the races, and kept collecting jerseys, and anything related to Merckx. In 2004 Frans got a dream (some religious people would say “a call from God”) which told him to be like Merckx in all aspects and that morning he became Eddy. He starts eating like him, training like him, working on his bike like him and became him, his family amused, his daughters grew up with his obsession and didn’t mind, but his loving wife was sometimes in despair as he even asked his wife to call him Eddy instead of Frans ( a true story!!) He started building bikes in his shed that was an exact copy of Eddy’s shed (he had a book with photos which he copied in all his work) The bike’s Lookalike, his appearance lookalike, his training of 6 hours a day (mostly after his work in a factory) his race clothing, his energy intake ( in the video at the breakfast table Frans (oops Eddy) cracked an egg and added to his Rodenbach beer just like Eddy) basically he was now Eddy and that into the smallest detail. His wife thinks he became mentally unstable and hard to live with, his daughters even got ridiculed by people, many people did and still do but he also had the support of people who loved the way he is…many ex-pro’s like Freddy Maertens as his fans. But Frans keeps it going despite the laughter of many, but Frans said that he wants to feel like Eddy who got a lot of critics too and praises of others. He does a one-man show to entertain the crowds at Kermesses which he got invited to, and Belgian TV stations start filming his story (as above by Channel 4) He also entertains the crowds with local laps while they are waiting for the pro’s at big pro kermesses and has an enormous following in my homeland, but also the same amount of haters…well I am a fan and always gonna be grateful to Frans as he has also an enormous heart, helping out local charities.